And when he had heard the whole tale and realised what a sensitive pride and what a singularly tender affection his cousin's action had outraged, La Vireville was certainly in no mind to rescind his half-jesting condonation of Raymonde de Guéfontaine's attempt at vengeance. Rather, he ratified it.
"Madame," he said when she had ended, "perhaps you can extend some measure of forgiveness to my unhappy cousin when you learn that he gave his life, after all, for the same cause as your brother has done. He died of his wounds after the battle of Charleroi last year."
"But that does not undo what he did," she said quite simply. "It does not give André back his honour; it makes no difference at all."
"No," answered La Vireville, after a pause, "that is true. It does not."
There was a silence. Then she said, leaning forward and looking at him very directly—there was more light now, "M. le Chevalier, I think there are some who love better than they hate, and some who hate better than they love. Could you forgive a mortal injury so readily? . . . But perhaps you have none to forgive?"
La Vireville abruptly put his locked hands over his eyes. "Madame," he replied after a moment, "I have had a mortal injury to forgive these ten years—and I have not forgiven it."
She was startled, no doubt, at the hard intensity of his tone, and drew back, as one who has stumbled on a grave.
"I beg your pardon," she said in a very low voice. "That was impertinent. I ought not to have asked such a question."
And it was a proof of the measure in which they had both already passed into a region of intimacy sufficiently remote from the somewhat unfortunate circumstances of their first meeting, that it struck neither of them at the moment, least of all the man, that it was a strange question to put to him, considering those circumstances. His recent treatment of an at least attempted mortal injury could hardly be termed rancorous. But this reflection did not occur to Mme. de Guéfontaine till she had, a little later, resumed her efforts at slumber, and to Fortuné it did not occur at all.